Bucknell University Athletics
Trio of Bison Win Men's Tennis Tournaments Over the Summer
9/1/2015 11:05:00 PM | Men's Tennis
LEWISBURG, Pa. – As the Bucknell men's tennis team gets set to begin the 2015-16 season, it will attempt to carry over momentum from a successful summer of play by three of its players. Senior Nick Bybel and sophomores Max Kane and Daniel Wright all won tournaments while competing during the offseason.
Bybel's win came on clay, as he took home the title in both singles and doubles at a wild-card tournament at the Binghamton Tennis Center. He defeated Artem Khrapko, a First Team All-Atlantic 10 selection and current player at Davidson College, in straight sets in the finals of the 32-player bracket. The two finalists teamed up to win the doubles tournament.
The tournament wins qualified Bybel for the Levene Gouldin & Thompson Tennis Challenger, a prestigious hard court event that has been held since 1994. The event has had numerous notable competitors, including former Wimbledon champion Andy Murray. Bybel lost a second-round match in the singles bracket, and fell to a team from Croatia in the doubles event.
Kane teamed with fellow West Chester, Pa. native John Wu to win the doubles title at the National Collegiate Clay Court Championshps in Pittsburgh. Kane and Wu, a starter on the Washington University St. Louis team that finished third in the nation in Division III last season, entered as the second seed and went 4-0 on their way to the title. They defeated Valparaiso's Garrett Gardner and Chad Kissell 6-1 in the final match.
Wright won the doubles title at an ITA Circuit event at Wellesley College while playing with Lehigh's Bryant Born. The duo entered as the 12th seed but exceeded expectations by winning all four of their matches for a first-place finish. They knocked off the top-seeded team of Dartmouth's Joey Haig and Emory's Scott Rubinstein in the semifinals, before beating the third-seeded team from Bowdoin, Gilbert Roddy and Kyle Wolfe, 8-4 in the finals.
Wright also advanced to the finals in the singles tournament at Wellesley and in the doubles bracket of an ITA event at Cornell.
